Four Content Marketing Tips to Engage Cyber & Risk Tech Buyers

Reaching target audiences today is both easy and hard. 

On one hand, it’s easy because there are countless media channels and platforms to share content and get out in front of buyers, plus generative AI tools that help produce content faster. 

But it’s hard because tech buyers are bombarded with endless content and are already well-informed on the subjects that matter to them. 

Here are several content marketing tips for breaking through and reaching your cyber and risk tech buyers with content that resonates.

1.  Do your research.

When you have an informed view of market conditions, you can more credibly speak to your audiences.

Survey data offers a trove of useful insights that can help B2B tech marketers understand their target markets, their pain points, and identify potential inroads. Fresh data offers current insights into the pressures, challenges, goals, behaviors, and intentions of technology buyers and end users. Therein lies compelling storylines that can speak to the current realities of managing cybersecurity risk and other risk domains.

Industry analyst firms, such as Forrester, Gartner, the Hackett Group, and others, are famous for conducting survey-based market research of technology buyers and end users, including the cybersecurity and risk management communities. Management consulting firms, such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and McKinsey & Company, also conduct annual survey-based research studies and are widely cited. 

Partnering with smaller research and advisory firms, such as Ardent Partners, enables marketing teams to co-sponsor and even co-design surveys to gather very specific intelligence from your target market. Having detailed data enables you to understand your markets better,  tailor messaging to potential buyers and overall be more strategic with content marketing.

2. Source insights directly from your audience.

Marketers often base content on topics that they think are important. But to break through to buyers with your content, it takes putting yourself in your buyers’ shoes and crafting content on topics that are important to them. 

There are ways to hear from your buyers: 

• Media and online communities: Monitor online communities and the media to understand the timely topics your prospects care about most. 
• Customer interviews: Talk directly to your existing customer base – what are their pain points, priorities, and challenges? What keeps them up at night? What are the big topics on top of their mind? What world events are they monitoring? Why did they choose you over other solution providers? The more you know about your buyers and what they’re paying attention to, the more engaging you can create your content.  
• Advisory panels: How’s your analyst relations game? Do you have any industry experts willing to serve on an advisory panel? How about highly successful customers? Bringing analysts and customers together to strategically advise you can help you more deeply understand what’s important and adjust messaging.
• Webinar Q&As: Take questions on webinars, live streams, and in-person industry events. It’s the best kind of dialogue because it’s real-time, authentic, and, if done well, can give you valuable insight to inform your content and make it resonate with buyers and stand out from other providers.

3. Involve external-facing departments in content planning discussions.

One of our favorite content marketing tips: Break down the marketing silo and involve external-facing departments in content planning discussions. Business development and sales representatives, customer experience, and professional services teams directly interface with prospects and customers and have first-hand experience into what’s important to them. You can get a unique and deep perspective from these colleagues on your buyers that you likely can’t get anywhere else, which may lead to an impactful content idea. Run your topic ideas past them and get their input regularly. 

4. Use Generative AI strategically and thoughtfully.

Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, enable marketing teams to work faster  If you have a solid outline and know the ins and outs of successful prompt engineering, tools like ChatGPT can get you 70% of the way there. It won’t spit out a perfect draft, but the content it generates gives you a strong jumping-off point to elevate the story. It can save you time, enabling you with more capacity to really identify the right topics and messages that will resonate at every stage of the buyer’s journey and experiment with fresh ideas to make your content marketing more impactful. 

Effective content is a dialogue, not a monologue.

Content should essentially reflect a dialogue between you and your buyers. Source insights from your community to ensure your content resonates, instead of relying on what you think is important as a marketer.

Looking for more content marketing tips and insight on how to stand out and capture demand? Check out our latest report on cyber and risk management technology marketing. Request a complimentary marketing consult to see how we can help you achieve your content marketing and demand generation objectives.